After playing 637 games for his beloved Liverpool, Tommy Smith gave up battling on the pitch to start fighting for his health.

Since retiring from the game in 1980, the former hard man has undergone a series of replacement operations that have resulted in new knees, hips and elbows. Some days he can barely walk and Smith, who won almost every honour in the game, has been declared 40% disabled by rheumatoid and osteoarthritis.

Like many players of his generation, Smith received basic medical treatment each time he was injured and there was a lack of knowledge of the long-term effects of cortisone.

"My knees were already knackered even before they started giving me cortisone," he said. "The truth was that in those days footballers were not treated that well. The club doctor would only turn up on match days. The physio was usually an old player who didn't fancy coaching. It really was primitive compared with today."

The basic wages players received in those days also led to many players returning to the first team before they had fully recovered from injury. When Smith joined Liverpool in 1962 he received £10 appearance money plus a £30 match fee and a £4 win bonus.

Even as part of the Liverpool team of 1977 - which won the League championship and European Cup but lost in the FA Cup final - his basic was £12,000, increasing to £25,000 with the team's success.

Players were also given a crowd bonus, earning £1 for every 1,000 people above an attendance of 28,000 at home matches.

Smith said: "In those days, if you didn't play you didn't get appearance money and that could affect how much you took home at the end of the week. You couldn't afford to stay out of the team for too long. There were times when I shouldn't have played and the club knew this. There were matches when they needed me or sometimes I needed the money."

A seasoned professional who was considered one of the hardest players in football, Smith, now 56, says he was prepared for medical problems even before he retired. "I knew I was going to have arthritis. But I never knew it was going to be this bad. There was a lack of medical knowledge in the game in those days."

Smith still lives in Liverpool, the city where he was born, but concedes that his affection for the club he supported all his life has slightly diminished over the way they have treated him since he quit football.

"My quality of life has not been very good since I finished playing. I think Liverpool should realise that some of my problems are because I was not treated very well by the club.

"I'm not saying all my medical problems belong to the club, but I would like to see them take some responsibility. Even before all this money started pouring into the game clubs were wealthy. Liverpool used to get crowds of 55,000. Where did the money go? Why was it not used on medical facilities for players?

"There's no doubt that clubs can afford to pay. Players will soon be able to show that the problems they are suffering are a result of their clubs."